Clint Bowyer stands by his car on Friday before qualifying for Sunday's Sprint Cup race. On Saturday, Bowyer tried his hand at yoga with NASCAR fans. / Nick Wass, AP

by Jeff Gluck, USA TODAY Sports

by Jeff Gluck, USA TODAY Sports

DOVER, Del. ‚?? Allegations of race-fixing. A teammate bumped from the playoffs. The threat of a sponsor's departure.

It's been a stressful month for Clint Bowyer, who has been at the center of a storm ever since his suspicious spin at Richmond triggered a series of events that rocked the NASCAR world.

But after a turbulent few weeks, it seemed there was nothing a little Saturday morning yoga couldn't fix. Well, maybe.

"That's it ‚?? man card gone!" Bowyer said as he arrived at Dover International Speedway's Turn 1 for a yoga session with race fans. The Michael Waltrip Racing driver was dressed in a black long-sleeve shirt and gym shorts ‚?? no yoga pants, thankfully ‚?? and modeled a pink towel wrapped around his waist.

"Whaddya think?" he said, striking a pose as photographers chuckled.

Bowyer will take all the light moments he can get these days. His Richmond actions ‚?? along with those of teammate Brian Vickers and MWR officials ‚?? resulted in the biggest penalty in NASCAR history and ended up changing the Chase for the Sprint Cup field.

MWR's Martin Truex Jr. made the playoffs due to his teammates' assistance, but was later bumped from the top 12 in favor of Ryan Newman -- part of NASCAR's penalty -- and later lost sponsor Napa due to the foul play. After thinking about it four days later, NASCAR then added Jeff Gordon to the Chase as an unprecedented 13th driver ‚?? in part because both Newman and Gordon were victims of MWR's actions.

But it all started when Bowyer spun out after being instructed to "itch" his arm by crew chief Brian Pattie. Known as one of the most popular drivers among his peers, other racers have told reporters the incident continues to weigh heavily on Bowyer ‚?? though the driver himself has not acknowledged the actions were intentional.

So when sponsor 5-hour Energy ‚?? which announced Friday it will stay with Bowyer and MWR despite the incident ‚?? asked Bowyer to do a yoga session to promote the connection of its raspberry flavor to the Living Beyond Breast Cancer non-profit, he didn't have much of a choice.

"I've been in Wyoming hunting all week while they signed me up for this," Bowyer said. "I landed, saw my schedule and yoga was on it. That was a first."

Bowyer, unable to focus for very long ‚?? unless he's in a race car going 200 mph ‚?? said yoga was "probably not the sport for me."

"Namaste," the yoga instructor told Bowyer and the race fans who joined him with pink mats.

"Whatever that means!" Bowyer said. "You know, I do have to drive later. Can limbs fall off after this? Do we have an ambulance close by?"

"This is all about clearing your mind," the instructor said later. "Instead of focusing on everything that's going on in your life‚?¶is there something you would like to release? Release that now.

"It's not working!" Bowyer yelled out.

Not much has worked for Bowyer so far in the Chase. He's 10th in the point standings, already 48 points out of the lead after two races. He qualified 23rd ‚?? the lowest of any Chase driver ‚?? for Sunday's AAA 400.

Bowyer blamed the slow start on poor decision-making and said the team "zigged when we should have zagged" in a ninth-place finish at Chicagoland and a 17th-place result at New Hampshire.

Clearly, yoga wasn't going to solve all of Bowyer's problems.

"I'm full of stress right now," he said. "I don't think this helped. This wasn't a help. This was definitely a hurt."

But from afar, it looked like he had fun. The typically gregarious Bowyer cracked jokes ("Why don't you just call it, '(Butt) in the air?'" he said of the downward-facing dog position) and wouldn't ‚?? or couldn't ‚?? take the exercises too seriously.

When the instructor told him to push his tailbone forward, Bowyer gave a little hip thrust reminiscent of Elvis.

"I don't know how you get one with yourself and calm down long enough," he said. "It's kind of like reading for four hours or watching paint dry. I can't sit still for that long."

Bowyer's girlfriend, Lorra Podsiadlo, said she didn't think yoga would do much good as a stress-reliever. She laughed as she watched Bowyer try and go through the session.

"Relax? You know him. No," she said. "It's impossible for him to relax unless he's watching a movie or in a tree stand. I thought he did good, though."

So what's the difference between patiently sitting in a tree stand for a hunt and doing yoga?

"There's a light at the end of the tunnel (in a tree stand)," Bowyer said. "The only light here is you're going to be sore and out of breath!"

Bowyer called himself a "one-and-done" when it comes to yoga. He said stretching and breathing in the morning could get a person in trouble because "there's no outhouse close by" and claimed he never limbers up before climbing into the car for a race.

"I know Jimmie (Johnson) does -- all those rich guys do," he said, his tone indicating the thought was ludicrous. "They have a paid position to come stretch you out before you get in the car and sit for three and a half hours. I mean, we don't jog around the racetrack."